The Switch
by LissyGoode
Summary: Five months after Wally disappears a woman shows up in Kid Flash's costume. In another universe Wally arrives at the North Pole only to be greeted by a female Nightwing. Rule 63!Team
1. Chapter 1

_**North Pole | December 20, 2016 | 18:15 Hours**_

Dick Grayson had more experience packed into his nineteen years of life than most men would ever have if they lived to reach one hundred. He had been trained from birth to be a world-class acrobat, and after his parents' murder, he had put those skills to good use fighting crime. The lifestyle made him a quick learner—you couldn't afford to make a mistake twice, not with someone's life on the line. One of the things Dick had learned early was that disappointment was as common in life as breathing was.

So he had not gotten his hopes up when Barbara contacted him about the anomaly in the North Pole. He had not dared to hope as he watched the electrical twister crackle with energy he had only ever seen the equivalence of once. He did not dare breath a sigh of relief as a figure in yellow-and-red materialized against the blue-white snowdrifts. His heart, however, was harder to control than his brain; as he ran across the stiff snow, it shouted for joy. _Finally,_ his heart seamed to say, _after five months, the searching will finally pay off!_

It wasn't until he reached the figure, collapsed face up in the powered ice, that he noticed what was wrong. The uniform, though tattered and burnt, was that of Kid Flash—it was the curves that filled out the uniform that made it clear this was not Wally West. The woman, panting, rolled herself onto her elbows and heaved. Blood mixed vomit melted the snow as her weak body buckled and she fell to her side.

It was then the woman noticed Dick. His winter-stealth suit was nearly invisible against the backdrop, but her clouded eyes focused on his face. Confusion slowly turned to understanding and she let out a defeated groan. "Fuck," the woman murmured before her eyes closed and her body lost all tension.

Either from pain or exhaustion (he wasn't sure which) the woman had passed out and left Dick to deal with her sudden appearance. Still watching her sleeping form, he pressed a finger to his comm. unit, "Nightwing to Oracle, are you seeing this?"

_**Watchtower | December 21, 2016 | 03:47 Hours**_

The last thing Wally West remembered was passing out at the feet of a woman wearing his best friend's costume. He and Windy had made plans if this happened, but both of them had silently begged the universe for a break. All they had wanted to do was return home, instead, they had been sent to each other's world. A world so close to their own, but with one not so subtle difference: everyone had the opposite gender than they should have.

Wally sat up, and with his movement, the lights of the room turned on. It took his eyes longer than it should have to adjust to the light, and his brain felt foggy. For a moment, he thought he had been drugged, but then he caught a glance of himself in the one-way mirror. A collar had been clasped to his neck with three lights indicating the loss of his powers.

Turning away from the mirror, Wally surveyed the room. He was in a twin bed with a white, feather comforter over his legs; across the room sat a white table between two overstuffed white chairs. A short bookshelf ran along the base of the white wall, the covers of the multiple novels and guides bringing the only color to the room. It was obvious by the lack of visible door that the room, nice as it was, was a holding cell.

He was the enemy. A stranger with a friend's face and costume. They had depowered him then put him in a cell for safe keeping until they could figure out what to do with him. _Well_, he thought,_ I could help speed that along._ Standing up, Wally's slow brain discovered that he was no longer in his Kid Flash uniform, but a pare of white cotton shorts. He pushed the question of who changed him out of his head, and faced the mirror, "I want to speak to Nightwing."

There was a whooshing sound as a door opened in the wall beside her. The man who entered the room was a good six inches taller then Wendy. He had black hair pulled back in a low ponytail and a black mask covering his eyes. His uniform stretched across his toned body, and even though his physique she could see her best friend in him.

In his hands, Nightwing had a tray piled high with food. There were two triple-decker sandwiches, five doughnuts, a bag of trail mix, and three burritos. He walked straight over to the table and put the tray down, forcing Wendy to follow him. They each took a seat, Wendy fiddling with the hem of her cotton nightgown so it covered her knees.

Nightwing didn't speak for a full thirty seconds, so Wendy took that as leave to eat. It wasn't until she had polished off everything on the tray that the man opened his mouth. "You _look _like him. You _eat_ like him. You have his _DNA_."

"And yet," Wendy finished, "I'm not Wally. So who am I? You found the photo in my suit, didn't you Dick?"

The man pulled a folded piece of paper out from the wrist of his glove and flattened it on the table. It was old, and faded, but it was clear who the people were. Four girls and two boys stood with their arms around each other. "Your team."

"The original one, yeah. That's Dixie," Windy tapped the face of the girl in the Robin uniform. "Kal'da, Connie, M'gell, and…" her finger rested over the blonde male, and a sob almost broke free from her chest. The redhead pushed it down. "And Apollo."

Nightwing watched her for a moment, his expression emotionless. "And you are?"

"Wendy. Wendy West, Kid Flash."

"You have a lot of explaining to do, Wendy."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Watch Tower | December, 21 | 04:12 hours**_

"You want me to believe you're from a parallel Earth? One where all our genders are swopped?" The woman Nightwing looked unconvinced, but not skeptical. It was as if she were daring Wally to prove it.

"You've seen that my DNA matches Wendy's. Sure, I _could_ be a clone, but then you've already had M'gell go though my memories. Which means you know about the time I spent in the pocket dimension with Wendy. Which is why you aren't asking me how I know everyone's names on this Earth."

"M'gell didn't go though all your memories. He refused to, and I don't blame him, but he was able to prove you weren't a clone and that you spoke with Wendy. He also said you both knew that this could happen."

"That we'd switch places?" Wally sighed and rubbed his hands over his face, "It was always a possibility. We exchanged messages in case it happened. She has a really important one for Apollo."

"Which is?"

"I'm pregnant," Wendy told Dick, and then grimaced. "At least, I hope I still am. Apollo and I, we were trying to get pregnant for a little while, but because of the Flash experiment, we didn't know if I could, you know, conceive. Oh, don't give me that look, Grayson! Anyway," the woman looked down at her lap, "I sort of made a drug to, uh, help me out and… after Apollo went undercover I found out it–it worked."

"But there was no good time to tell him," Dick guessed, "was there?"

Wendy shook her head, "Saving the world came first. And then I was gone. Locked away in the pocket dimension with Wally. We came to a hypostasis. Artemis… is she…?"

"Six months," Nightwing confirmed. "And still robbing banks."

Wendy bolted out of her seat, "What?" her hands were shaking, but the colar stopped them from actually vibrating. "No! Nonono! She-can't-be-a-bad-guy-because-if-she-is-then-Apollo-is-a-bad-guy-and-he-worked-so-hard-not-to-be-like-his-parents-and-James!"

"Wendy, calm down." Nightwing stood and gripped her hands softly, forcing them to stop shaking. "She's not killing anyone," he said, looking into her frantic eyes, "not hurting anyone. She's not like her family… _Apollo_ is not like his family. Okay?"

Taking a deep breath, Wendy nodded and turned away from him and looking around the room. "Am I going to have to stay here?" It wasn't too bad, but it was colorless and she was sick of colorless. If she had done the math right in that slow head of hers, she and Wally had been stuck in that dimension for five months with nothing to look at but grey blankness and no one to talk to but themselves. Even Wendy could get tired of her own jokes after a while.

"No," Dick promised, "this was just until we were able to confirm you aren't a threat. M'gann and Blue have been scanning your thoughts and body language for the last fifteen minutes and they say you're safe."

"Great," Wendy muttered before turning back to Nightwing, "so where am I staying?"

Dick put a hand on her shoulder and smiled, "I have an idea or two."

_**Palo Alto | December 21 | 13:02 hours**_

"You have got to be kidding me," Wally cried as M'gell's Bio-ship (currently shaped like a sports car) pulled up to what should have been his and Artemis's duplex. "I can't go in there—Apollo would kill me!"

"I think he'd be happy to see you," M'gell told him, parking and getting out of the car.

"He'd be _happy_ to see his girlfriend," Wally said, "not the idiot who miscalculated on her chance back home and sent her to a parallel Earth."

"I think you're over reacting," the Martian told Wally. In his human guise, with his red hair and freckles, Miguel Morse could be Wally's brother. It was the type of relationship he and Megan had, after all, when he had finally admitted his feelings about her had just been teenage hormones.

Wally liked M'gell, he really did, but the guy was still learning to be human. And he was an idiot at it. "Sure, whatever you say." Wally had to clinch his hands to keep them from shaking as he walked up the stares to the cozy apartment. With an encouraging nod from the Martian, Wally knocked on the door.

"What the fuck do you wa—" Artemis paused as she opened the door, her eyebowas lifting and then furrowing as her eyes narrowed into slits.

"H-hi, I—" the words stuck in Wendy's throat when she glanced down at Artemis's swollen belly. "Wow…" Suddenly, she felt the sharp presser of an arrow point against her own midriff.

"Eyes up here, lady," Artemis growled. "Who the hell are you?"

"Um," Wendy swallowed, "Apple butter? "

The woman's eyes widened and she pulled Wendy into a hug, the arrow in her hand dropping to the floor. "My God," Artemis sobbed, "he's alive!"

"Apple butter?" Megan had a questioning look on her face, and Wendy didn't blame her.

"About a year ago Wally and I were drunk, goofing around, ya know?" Artemis explained, pulling back and wiping the tears on her face. She made a sound that was a mix between a choke and a laugh, smoothing her hair out of her face. "Talking about really stupid stuff. Code words in case something happened to us and we needed to let the other know. Wally came up with this outrageous situation."

"If one of us happened to be from a parallel universe, and didn't know how to get back, we'd use the code 'apple butter.' Apollo thought it was so stupid, said it would never work," Wendy laughed and put her hands on her hips in triumph. "Shows him!"

Artemis laughed and shook her head, "We've—"

"—got to get you switch back." While they had been talking, Apollo had pulled his shoulder length hair back into a low ponytail. He turned away from Wally and M'gell, walking back into the apartment. It was completely trashed, dishes and weapons thrown everywhere, and Apollo didn't look much better. For a moment, Wally wondered how Artemis was doing in his absence, if their house back on his Earth was a mirror of this once, but then the man started to talk again. "Zac has got some new spells under his belt, maybe—"

"Uh, dude? Not so sure if magic is the best thing. There's something you have to know…"

Apollo narrowed his eyes, "And that is?"

"You're kinda going to be a dad. In, like, eight months."

"Shit," Apollo muttered rubbing at his stubbly beard, and then a grin cracked across his face and he laughed. "Holey shit, I'm going to be a dad!"

**A/N I'd like to thank Phoenix Of Hope 42, CovenantGirlLoki, PrettyKitty Luvs U, carmaonu, HappyGoLucky15, Sassbrat, manipulativemermaid, Undefined and Fine with It, and Jex Dawson for faving, following, commenting on this story! Thanks guys! :D**


	3. Chapter 3

_**Gotham City | December 22 | 02:06 hours**_

"If you're here about the girl," Dick said, facing the dark alley, "I already know."

"'Course you do," Artemis muttered, leaning against the cold brick wall. Alice kicked inside her, and the woman put her hand on her stomach. The baby loved it when Artemis went out at night, robberies were her favorite but secret meetings worked just as well. Honestly, she feared for the child's morals. "You know everything. I'm not here about Wendy, Dick. You know _that_, too."

"You're here about Wally." It wasn't a question. Both of them knew what Artemis had come to say tonight. Neither of them felt like bringing it up first.

Finally, Artemis sighed, "He's alive, Dick. I never even hoped…"

"I know. Most the time I thought I was searching in vain, the rest I didn't even know if I _wanted_ to find him. That's a horrible thing for a best friend to say, isn't it?"

"Yes," Apollo admitted, scratching his stubble, "but we're both horrible people, aren't we?"

"We were grieving," Dixie said, like she had to explain herself. "It was only natural to go to each other for comfort."

"Almost four months of comfort," the blonde man growled.

"We didn't know she was—"

"Alive!" Apollo punched the brick wall next to him. "Dammit! She was alive the whole time and what were we doing? Fu—"

"—cking! I was cheating on him, and I didn't even…" Artemis frowned down at her scratched hand, tears mixing with the blood. "And he's going to forgive me, because that's the type of guy Wally is. And I'll always be the screwed up little bitch who thought she could play capes and tights."

"You're being hard on yourself," Dick reached over to touch her cheek.

"Damn right," Artemis said slapping his hand away. "I love Wally. _You_ were just a mistake. We're over, Grayson. Go back to Barbara. _Please._ Do yourself a favor and stay with her this time. She's a lot less screwed up than anyone else here."

That was a funny thought. Brandon, who had been raised by a cop and still joined the capes; who had been shot and paralyzed; who spent more time with computers than people, was still… good. Still better—saner—than everyone else. "I have to go."

"You're going to tell Wally, aren't you." Again, Dixie didn't say it as a question.

"Someone has to, hopefully it will be easier coming from me."

_**Palo Alto | December 22 | 03:05 hours**_

When Artemis walked back into her apartment, she was met with a pair of bright green eyes. "You're up." It was a stupid thing to say, but she hadn't expected the woman to be waiting for her. "Good, I guess… I wanted to talk to you later, but I—"

"We know."

"What?" Apollo asked, shock playing on his usually unreadable face. "_We know…_ what?"

"About you and Dixie," Wally told him, rubbing his face, "Artemis and Dick. It was the only logical circumstance to—"

"Shit," Apollo muttered, "I hate anthropology."

"It wasn't anthropology," Wally laughed, "We know you guys."

"You do, don't you," he muttered defeated.

"We're all a little fucked up," the redhead said with a shrug, "but we try."

"Yeah," Artemis sighed, rubbing her swollen stomach, "half of that is true at any case."


End file.
